Poverty
hits hardest at the female half of humankind. If you are a woman
living in a rural area of a developing country, you are likely to
be poorer than a man, more vulnerable, own no land, be less educated
and in poorer health. And you are unlikely to live as long.

Struggling
to combine a double day of low-paid work with care for
the home, rural women often have to cope with frequent pregnancies
and child mortality. For women, perhaps the cruelest reality of
all is that they have less chance than men to escape from poverty.
A rural woman is likely to have little or no say in the way the
family spends its income.

Discrimination
in education is the start of the vicious spiral of poverty. A girl
may be deprived of schooling and literacy for no other reason than
that she is female. Seventy per cent of poor women in India cannot
read or write. Illiteracy often excludes people from written knowledge
and decision-making.

''The
type of work they do is limited by their low education levels'',
states the Rural Poverty Report 2001 on the subject of rural women.
Cultural norms mean that in many countries women are excluded from
participating in decisions affecting both their households and communities.

In
countries where they have similar educational opportunities, Burkina
Faso for example, women farm land more productively than men. But
access to credit is seldom feasible, let alone affordable, for women
farmers. And they may even have to pay men for access to water for
irrigation.

Some
rural women have been affected by trade liberalization They are
unable to participate in the marketing of export crops as they lack
land rights and access to essential farm inputs. On the other hand,
some women have gained by securing jobs in new export activities.

Investment
in rural women pays off. Female schooling can lead to a reduction
in poverty by giving women the literacy skills and confidence they
need to have a say about how things are run. A mother's education
often leads to better health and nutrition for her children.

More
investment in improving the lot of rural women could create a virtuous
circle of better education, improved health and higher income.
And women need to be given the right to have more control over productive
assets  land, water and credit, for example. Removing gender
inequalities is not only morally right, it is good for economic
growth and development.